Discussion

Hi everyone!
And a big thanks to @BenTossell for helping us out!
We created Karmatic to enable drivers to finally be able to communicate with each other on the road. Through this social media app, users are able to type in the license plate of another driver and be connected within the touch of a button. No longer let the love of your life drive away again. Not interested in using Karmatic for love? No problem, use it to communicate with that guy that cut you off, or that person who parked 6 inches from you. So many different ways to use Karmatic and we are excited to be able to share it with the world! Users' Favorite Features:
- Sending anonymous audio messages to drivers
- Sending friend requests to other drivers
- Rating other drivers on a number scale of 0-10
- Searching users via license plates
- Sending honk notifications to users
- Posting statuses and interacting
- Competing to see who's the best driver in the squad
🔥Join the movement: https://appsto.re/us/EaPbab.i
*Karmatic was trending number one on the App Store for over 18 hours on Thursday, August 11th while also receiving over 200 five star reviews*

I have to go with the obvious...
Shouldn't people not be using their phones when driving? - therefore limiting this to passengers, assuming that would make this less 'fun'.
Even if encouraging drivers to not use their phones, the whole basis of this app kind of goes against that.
Did you consider this app but just aimed at passengers? - Think the younger generation may dig that (I may well be wrong of course)

@bentossell This is not an app to use while driving, it is an app to connect drivers. All a driver needs is a plate number that can be entered while the vehicle is not in motion. It is never recommended that a driver should not be texting, tweeting, snapchatting or using any other social media. But when the car is stopped, a connection can be made with the person of interest by using only a plate number. It is for those random encounters, the people you wish you knew their name but were afraid to ask or couldn't because they drove off.. Let's not let that happen again!

@stereoskyline yeh its always going to be recommended not to do it while driving but I feel like apps that are so closely related to the driving experience are just asking people to use it while driving. (snapchat speed filter etc) - they say dont do it, no one listens, problems.

Literally had this same product ready to deploy to the AppStore two years ago, but couldn't bring myself to release it as I knew that my net contribution to the driving community would be that of danger.
I think everyone including yourself knows that it will be drivers using this behind the wheel. What steps do you take to make sure that that doesn't happen?

@adamfarah This is not an app to use while driving, it is an app to connect drivers. All a driver needs is a plate number that can be entered while the vehicle is not in motion. It is never recommended that a driver should not be texting, tweeting, snapchatting or using any other social media. But when the car is stopped, a connection can be made with the person of interest by using only a plate number. It is for those random encounters, the people you wish you knew their name but were afraid to ask or couldn't because they drove off.. Let's not let that happen again!

@stereoskyline@bentossell
I'll just leave this link here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/dot-...http://nymag.com/daily/intellige...
Waze has tried to make its app safer for drivers. It has disabled text input when it detects that a car is in motion. (Users can override the text-input block, but only by telling Waze they are riding in the passenger seat.) And last year, it added a hands-free option, allowing drivers to input alerts with voice commands instead of typing them on their phones.
If you've used Waze you'd realise this was a complete afterthought and a lot of these updates came much much much later, years and years later....why on earth wasn't this a day 1 thing...why wasn't the entire experience actually built on these principles...like safety and wellbeing?
While millions of people use navigational apps on their phones, the Department of Transportation warns that using those behind the wheel can be just as dangerous as texting and driving, reports CBS News transportation correspondent Jeff Pegues.
I find that the real trouble with a lot of companies is that they approach research completely wrong, in part it starts with validating assumptions if a larger more successful company has done something, signaling it's ok to do it which might not be the case at all, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should...surprisingly coupled with odd intents that in many ways aren't entirely misplaced leads many to focus on proving their theories right.
They normally ignore all answers that deviate away from proving their theories since the introduction of the automobile we have as humans struggled with a complacency around safety as humans we have not evolved, we don't have 30 fingers per hand, none of us can fly or breath for hours underwater, so as technology starts to get "exceedingly advanced in the sense of the opportunities affording us makers.
What comes into question is asking the right questions and being more than willing to get totally new perspectives going on implementation not just apart of the opinion experience.
People have been saying this with their mouths and with their actions, human beings get distracted easily and often 24/7...part of the human condition.
Coupled this conditon with us as humans being able to travel at a high velocity in a moving piece of metal.
You're left with not just an opportunity but an obligation to innovate....Apple Watch still asks users to stand up when you are driving, it has no intelligence around context, it wasn't programmed in this way, but they thought of so many other things. This was simply left out but it's apart of a great deal of our experience we are in motion for a good portion of our life in a vehicle at concerning speeds.
The Apple Watch isn't going to get smart instantly, that's nto what this is about...it's about people building things in service of other people in the way they want this to empower their lives, people always want to be safer and better humans, without a terrible cost.
If someone dies from these experience which happens daily all around the world we forget, but if it was our family member, our sister would we care a bit more and speak out to simply.
Think Differently, add real actual technology to these experiences to make them smarter not because it's cool but because it's safer for everyone.

@stereoskyline@bentossell
Distracted Driving Causes Nearly 40% of Accidents Two studies show driver distraction due to technology is still a key factor in accidents.
http://www.automotive-fleet.com/...
In California, cell phone use without a hands-free headset has recently been made unlawful. Ironically, GPS navigation system (a device to enable a car driver to easily get around town with a computer/satellite device) sales have been increasing.
http://www.cnet.com/news/study-d...
We have a war on texting - the real issue is distractions...if anything leads to more distractions you have to measure how safe introducing any kind of experience is to this environment and weigh it properly. Are lives lost worth xyz and so on, we have to do this continually for every generation. If their are ways of innovating to offset issues we must do those as well but most of that innovation only comes when we have a discussion around this.
Otherwise we just build and ship like we did in the 40s before the term ergonomic design was even a thing...we never built with the idea of mind around people. We just built things.

@stereoskyline@bentossell
This difference in glance time represents approximately 50 feet in distance when travelling at U.S. highway speed.
Men saw a ten per cent improvement in 'glance' time when font was changed to a clearer typeface
However women responded with the same reaction time across both fonts
Researchers have warned that the type of font used inside your car can make a difference in your chances of having a crash.
With car radios becoming more advanced, and many drivers relying on GPS devices to get them from A to B, we are becoming more reliant on at-a-glance information presented within the cabin.
MIT researchers, working at the research university's Age Lab, compared a range of fonts - and discovered that even subtle differences in fonts could cost you enough reaction time to travel for 50 feet before getting your eyes back to the road.
Have you guys even done usability testing testing like some of the things done at MIT's research lab?

@stereoskyline@bentossell Last thing I promise lol what I really want from this...Is a freakin standard not a new standard we don't have one....we have theory's about a lot, standards for usability and guidelines to follow from everyone from Apple to Google.
But we have 0 standards when it comes to designing for human beings in motion, especially when the context is driving an automobile traveling at variating velocities.
That's what I want addressed by the big guys but they all profit from this screwed up non existent standard, that everyone copy and pasts.
is it too much to ask.